Quality control: Substandard drug issue cannot be addressed without testing facilities

Issues at PIMS also reviewed.

ISLAMABAD: As long as drug quality testing labs are not set up, the issue of substandard and spurious drugs cannot be addressed. Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZABMU) Vice Chancellor Dr Javed Akram said this on Tuesday while attending a Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat meeting.

CADD Secretary Hussan Iqbal the told Standing committee that the Ministry of National Health Regulations, Research and Coordination (NHRSC) was going to establish a drug testing lab, but he was not aware of the time schedule.

“Quality is not ensured in medicine because public hospitals buy them under Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules and the lowest bidders are awarded contracts,” Dr Akram said, adding that four clauses of PPRA rules should be amended, while pharmaceutical supply companies should be prequalified to ensure the provision of quality medicines in public hospitals.

He explained the difference between spurious (counterfeit) drugs and substandard (low grade or low potency). In case of spurious drugs, we request drug courts to take action against manufacturers, but action is usually taken against small chemists,” Dr Akram said.

He said that in the absence of domestic facilities, “we send drug samples to Singapore or Jordan, which charge $5000 and $10,000 respectively for testing one sample.

On the electro-medical equipment in the PIMS Radiology department, Dr Akram informed parliamentarians that the 30-years-old X-ray machines were outdated, while adding that the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) had granted Rs90 million for laboratory equipment in the pathology lab, and that President Mamnoon Hussain had approved Rs5 million for expansion of the Lab and had also pledged a further Rs10 million the the same purpose.

“We do not give medicine to outpatients. We have created a medicine bank and poor patients are given medicine from there, while inpatients are provided medicines by hospital.” He said a Rs250 million trauma centre had been built with help from philanthropists, adding that it would open next week.

On the provision of the food additive Avemar (fermented wheat germ extract) under integrative oncology services at PIMS, Dr Akram said it is a form of complementary, alternative treatment. “If the company will provide it to us for free, we are ready to try it on 300 patients,” he said.

He said 605 posts are vacant at PIMS, including the post of administrator, which they hope to fill by next month.

He requested that Senator Kalsoom Parveen be nominated to join the PIMS committee for appointment of an administrator.

To a question on private practice of doctors at PIMS in the evening shift and their private check up fees Dr Javed Akram said that 80 percent of doctors at private hospitals and clinics are from PIMS and their loyalty is divided as they are not available in the evening.

He said that from April 7, institution-base practice was started and that 67 consultants were participating in it from 3pm to 7pm.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2016.